6 June, 2023: The Eternal Doctor
set in North Sentinel Island, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
There is a man who is a father—Father—living on an island stranded to itself in the Bay of Bengal. Father is clad in a waist belt, headband, and necklace, and nothing else. He scrummages in the bushes, looking for something to cure the boy from the hut next to his of his strange cough and weakness. The boy has been lying stiff and still on the sand. The other men of the North Sentinel Island ignore the boy, not wanting to catch whatever he could have. But Father remembers when he, too, suffered from such debilitating weakness that the people near his hut had to scoop water into his mouth. He would not have survived if someone had not taken care of him in such a condition, and this has always inspired him to want to be there for someone else.
Father is looking for a certain leaf of a certain size and greenness. They tend to grow under the bulletwood trees and are markedly pungent. When he has given this leaf to others, their cough reduces and they gain an alertness. He sometimes gives the leaf as-is, but he also mashes it with other leaves, which increases its effect. He is the only man who goes out of his way to make these remedies, unlike the other men who busy themselves with their bows and arrows, hunting boars. When they spot Father bent down looking at plants, they belabour him to start hunting and scowl and utter curses when he doesn’t pay them any attention.
Father would not be surprised if they kill him someday.
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